Holiday camp for asylum-seeking children (Haute-Nendaz VS)
Description: The "asylum" sector of the Office for Social Services of the Canton of Valais hosts a summer camp for children of asylum-seeking families. There are two groups of kids coming over two weeks (one group each week). The first kids group is aged 5 to 8 years old and the second group 9 to 12 years old. One group is composed of 30-40 kids. The volunteers will join the full duration of the summer camp and already arrive on Saturday. The purpose of the summer camp is to give relaxation, games and discovery for children of asylum-seeking families. They have often been faced with difficult situations in their countries of origin and live in an unstable situation since their arrival in Switzerland. There are around 25 volunteers in total consisting of local volunteers and SCI volunteers.
Type of Work: You will manage every day a group of children, together with other local and international volunteers. You'll participate in the animation, the implementation of activities for the children and the practical life of the camp (daily life activities as waking kids up; assist them getting dressed, taking shower, going to sleep; clean up). The programme is fully prepared when the camp starts and the task of the volunteers is to hold the planned activities together with other local volunteers, as well as play with the kids. There is one evening where you can suggest your own activity to the kids (please let us know in case you are interested!). Every volunteer will also be asked to sleep 1 night in the hallway in front of the kids bedrooms to support or to handle possible problems at night.
Study Theme: Volunteers will be encouraged to think about how they can make a contribution to peaceful living together of people from all origins in their home town.
Accommodation: You will be accommodated in a group accomodation in a mountain village. You will have mattresses, blankets and bed sheets provided - be prepared to share a room with other volunteers. Toilets and shower will also be shared. There is wifi. It is possible to wash your clothes in the accommodation building, there is a washing machine. Food will be prepared by cooks.
Language: You have to be fluent in French for the communication with the kids, the local volunteers and the workcamp hosting partner. If you additionally have German or Russian skills, that’s ideal. Camp language and the local language are French. If French isn't your mother tongue, the workcamp hosting partner will call you to check your language skills - within two weeks after you’re accepted.
Requirements: You should be flexible, responsible and motivated to take care of the children during the day, evening and some over-night watch. You'll also need to be creative with ideas for activities and games for the children, especially for the evening with free activity and the SCI workshop session. As part of your application, please send us a motivation letter in French.
Notes: The children will stay at the camp the whole week, they don’t go back home at night; so you will also spend the evenings with them. Be aware that the working hours exceed the standard in SCI workcamps – you will mainly be working from morning till evening. During two weeks all volunteers, the workcamp hosting partner and children live together as a community, so you will not spend much time alone. SCI volunteers will be free on Saturday afternoon in the middle of the workcamp and have one day off during one of the two weeks where they will do a trip in the region. Please note that the food often contains meat, but there is always also a vegetarian option.
INCOMING/ADDITIONAL FEE for volunteers applying via Partner organisations & Contacts of SCI: https://scich.org/en/incoming-fee/
Camp Photographs
